Mr. Bean, the bumbling television character best known for getting a Christmas turkey stuck on his head, isn’t an obvious choice for a corporate pitchman.
Yet folks at the Canadian Centre for Agri-Food Research Health and Medicine (CCARM) in Winnipeg have found a way to use Mr. Bean’s star power to sell the health benefits of legumes and the value of pulse research.
A media and communication team at St. Boniface Hospital, where CCARM is located in Winnipeg, used thousands of dried beans to create a 20 by 30 inch portrait of Mr. Bean, which the centre will use to promote pulses.
Dr. Peter Zahradka, CCARM team leader, said Rowan Atkinson, the British actor who created the Mr. Bean character, gave the centre permission to use his image to publicize its research.
“They (Atkinson’s management team) had no problem in giving us approval to work with the likeness of Mr. Bean and even asked us for permission to add it to their Facebook page” Zahradka said.
“We look forward to using this to draw attention to the important research being done at CCARM for the pulse industry.”
The CCARM studies the potential health benefits of nutraceuticals, functional foods and natural health products.
The communications team also filmed a short video that features the portrait.
The video can be seen at www.ccarm.ca
